American Lit Context Flashcards
What laws were enforced in America from the late 19th century that enforced racial discrimination?
Jim Crow Laws
In what year was the Chinese Exclusion Act signed?
1882
What was published in 1918?
My Antonia
What was the American stance at the start of WW1 and why?
neutral - nation made up of many different immigrants, no obvious choice
When was the Gilded Age - focus on monopoly capitalism?
late 19th century - Gilded age literature set out to expose the futility of American waste
What was nordicism?
a form of white supremacy that favoured immigrants of northern descent in American eg) Tom Buchanan - The Rise of the Coloured Empires
When did the 19th amendment (female emancipation) pass?
1920
When was the American Civil War?
1861-65
Why do some critics argue prohibition was passed?
as a form of xenophobia - to exclude immigrants who drank alcohol
also to combat domestic violence - Myrtle and Tom
What characterised American Literature following the enlightenment?
shift from God centred thought to man centred thought
Quotes from Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography about the virtues of a true American
"”dressed plainly”… “moderation” - Contrast to Gatsby’s “gaudy” lifestyle
satirical as “imitate Jesus and Socrates”
Quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s lecture ‘ The American Scholar’ that links to The American Dream
“that gleam of light that flashes across the mind from within’
Ecoliterature
explores mans relationship with the land
What characterises Regional Realism?
colloquial dialects, difficult moral predicaments
What did Mark Twain publish that attacked American Romanticism and The Southern Myth?
‘Fenimoore Coopers Literary Offenses’
